This is a continuation of my series of posts documenting the restoration of my BMW R65. For the previous post in this series, click here.
When we last left off, I had documented the process of constructing the seat for my bike, and although that step chronologically occurred after the stuff I'll be describing in this post, this blog entry comes after. This post is pretty short, and just covers the broad strokes of installing the engine and transmission.
A crucial step before installing anything heavy into the bike is installing the kickstand. The bike must be able to stand on its own for everything else to go in, so I stripped down and painted the kickstand in the same manner as the frame and subframe. Installation was simple, just screwing it into place and installing the spring that holds it up or down.
The progress up until this point! Really starting to come together
and look good, especially with the tank in place.
The engine is a heavy bastard, but is relatively easy to install. Two long threaded rods go through the frame and engine body to hold it in place, so it was just a matter of lifting (with help) and pushing the rods through the holes. Nuts and washers hold the rod in place, and with that the engine is in! That's the end of the simple stuff, as the transmission wound up being a bit more tricky.
The transmission was odd to get into place, likely because I'm technically fitting an engine and transmission from an R100RS (980cc) into the frame of an R65LS (650cc). I don't have a lot of wiggle room behind the engine at this point. I had to unbolt the swingarm and swing the rear wheel back to ultimately attach the transmission. Luckily the transmission hooks directly to the rear end of the clutch shaft and bolts on with 4 easy bolts, so once it was in place, there were no more issues.
I bolted the swingarm back in place and admired my work! With the engine/transmission in place I can start attaching more small components, including the carburettors, the throttle, and the air intake filters. Look out for all that in the next post!
Thanks for reading,
Juju